


Snowflakes

by maisumi



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Drabble, Ficlet, M/M, Prompt Fic, Weather
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28811100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maisumi/pseuds/maisumi
Summary: "Isn't that funny? What made snowflakes distinguishable to the human eye was the accumulation of imperfections."In which Shinji asks Kaworu about the climate before the Second Impact.
Relationships: Ikari Shinji/Nagisa Kaworu
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52





	1. Snowflakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InfinityIllusion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfinityIllusion/gifts).



"Have you ever seen snow?"

Shinji asked, glancing up from his book at Kaworu, who was sprawled out on his bed and looking up at nothing in particular.

"What makes you ask that?"

"I don't know," he said, closing the book completely and turning to face the bed more fully, "Right now we're studying what the climate was like before the Second Impact..." Shinji trailed off, hoping Kaworu would answer. Hearing nothing, he continued to speak, if only to fill the silence, "I guess Japan was special. We used to have four seasons, and they came once every year."

"In the winter, the coldest of the seasons, there was snow. It fell from the sky like rain, but it was like ice. Ice... falling from the sky." He looked wistfully out the window, though it was too dark to see anything outside.

.

Later, as he was cutting carrots in the kitchen, Kaworu leaned against the refrigerator. "Did you ever cut fireworks out of origami paper as a child?"

"I did," Shinji responded, a shadow of a smile on his lips, "I think I remember giving some to my mother."

"In some parts of the world, they used to do the same thing, but instead of fireworks, they called them paper snowflakes."

"Snow doesn't fall in ice chunks, or cubes. It falls in little flakes, so light they feel like nothing but cold in your hand, on your face or in your hair. It's like dusting, a sprinkling, just small, airy flakes floating through the sky."

Shinji, who had stopped cutting, watched as Kaworu twiddled his fingers down and through the air, mimicking the path of falling snow.

.

In the evening, curled up in his futon and about to put his headphones in, Shinji heard Kaworu turn onto his side.

"Snowy nights were quiet. Certainly, there were no cicadas during the winter, but it's beyond that. Many people felt it was the atmosphere. They said snowy nights were contemplative, and that people were less apt to make noise to disrupt the tranquility."

"But it's much more mundane than the Lilin thought. The blanket of snow on the ground acts as in insulator, absorbing the sound. Much like how they insulate recording booths."

"Blanket?"

"Ah, the snow piles up. The longer it snows the more it piles. Unlike rain, which washes away, and only pools where the ground is low, the snow collects where it falls unless moved about by the wind."

.

The next day, sitting at the table, Shinji was trying to do his math assignment, but his mind kept wandering to the image of a large feather blanket, covering rice paddies in the country.

It was the first time in a long time his mind had wandered to a place he was happy to have arrived at.

"Tell me more about the flakes."

"Hm?" Kaworu looked up.

"The snowflakes."

"Oh," he said, taking Shinji's pencil and turning to a new page in his notebook. "They weren't just shavings, or flat squares," he said, sketching out some shapes onto the page. "Actually, the Lilin used them as a proxy for uniqueness. It was often said that no two were the same. They each started from one speck of dust or pollen, with water crystals forming around that speck. They had a hexagonal base, and as more molecules gathered in each area they began to form branches. As a branch became longer and stronger, more molecules collected there, and thus the longer it became, the more branches were created, and so on and so forth. And do you know why the branching begins?"

Kaworu paused looking directly into Shinji's eyes. He shook his head as his heart raced, but he was unable to look away.

"The imperceptible imperfections in the lattice."

"They are like Lilin in that way. At birth, nearly identical. But, as they grow, they become more and more unique. Their development is impacted by their environment. The things close to them gather, sticking and making their jagged edges more and more pronounced. But it's this attraction to flaws, the markedness of their defects, that created the beautiful, unique patterns snowflakes were known for."

Shinji swallowed, turning the fan on a higher setting as an excuse to look away from Kaworu's sincere gaze.

"Isn't that funny? What made snowflakes distinguishable to the human eye was the accumulation of imperfections. Defects in the flake are to observers its most alluring attributes."

Kaworu put his hand on top of Shinji's, squeezing it ever so slightly.

"Someday, I'd like to show you."

"Snow?" Shinji asked, through the sound of blood rushing through his veins.

He laughed and closed his eyes, before meeting Shinji's once more. "That too," he said, "That too."


	2. Snow Day

As the sound of sirens hung in the air, testing the emergency broadcast system, Shinji sat on the couch covering his ears.

"Shinji," Kaworu said as he sat down, "You know how students are given time off from school after the buildings sustain too much damage?"

He nodded.

"That used to happen in the winter, too. But not because of building damage. The snow would pile up, and when it became too dangerous to allow students to walk or bike to school, they would call it a 'snow day.'"

"A snow day..." Shinji echoed unthinkingly.

.

"It looks light and fluffy," Kaworu said, setting down his chopsticks to take a drink of water, "but it's really quite heavy. It could take someone hours to clear just their own property, depending on where they lived and how much had snowed."

"They had these big trucks, snow plows, that would push the snow from off of the roads so cars could drive. There were also places where people put chains on their wheels before driving. Oh, and many people kept these little brushes in their car to brush the snow off of the windows."

"Snow sounds dangerous..." Shinji said, his eyes widening as his eyebrows raised.

"It was. But it was beautiful."

.

"How did they know?"

"Know what?" Kaworu replied, placing a newly folded towel at the top of the pile.

"If it was a snow day..."

"Well," he started, "It depended on the place. Many areas would broadcast the school closures on the news. They'd crawl across the bottom of the screen in order, and children would wait with bated breath to see if maybe their school would be added by the next time the cycle started."

"And if it didn't?" Shinji asked, sitting up straighter to get just that little bit closer to Kaworu as he spoke.

He chuckled, "Then the children went to school."

.

Shinji was cleaning out the refrigerator when a thought came to him. "Kaworu?"

"Yes?" he called back, walking leisurely into the kitchen.

"Was it like this?" Shinji asked, pointing to the ice crystals forming around some old frozen meat. "The snow, I mean."

Kaworu walked closer, turning the package over in his hands. "No, but this isn't dissimilar. It was... softer."

"Softer..."

Shinji scraped the ice crystals off of the old packages and rubbed them between his fingers, letting them float down to the floor below.

.

"It seems harmless from inside."

Shinji looked up to meet Kaworu's gaze, his eyes focusing in the dark.

"You can see the snow dancing down to the earth, falling gracefully with the wind. It was delicate. It was picturesque. It was beautiful, from the warmth and safety of your insulated chambers. But from outside... Snow slicked roads, dug craters. It burst pipes and buried most of the earth, suffocating the plants below. It can be hard to reconcile these two things. It was so dangerous that the Lilin, fearing for the safety of their children, recognized its awesome power and instituted a system for closing down centers of formal education."

"You said it was light, and soft."

"Yes."

"I thought schools and things closed because there was too much."

"That's true."

"So how can..."

"It was both. One little flake was nothing, a transient crystal. But those little snowflakes built up..."

Kaworu trailed off, and they sat together in comfortable silence.

"Lilin are made of cells. Each cell is certainly powerful, serving many functions and able to survive, provided it has access to appropriate nutrients. But the Lilin are more than just the sum of their cells. That's what makes you so hard to understand... There is something about the whole, the large scale, that thrives in the dichotomy of the paradoxical. Both delicate, and violent. Both weak and strong. Snow, melting away as it contacts skin, but en masse persisting through the fierce winter and into the spring. Lilin, able to withstand awesome force, but able to damage themselves if moving too quickly."

He reached out a hand, placing his thumb by Shinji's eye and slowly running it down his cheek.

"These contradictions of grace, beauty, power, and fear, at the level of the storm that is an individual life... It's what makes maintaining the boundaries between people worth it. It's why the Instrumentality Project must not come to fruition."

Kaworu's thumb brushed along Shinji's lips.

"Lilin are fierce, mighty, and strong," he said, closing his eyes and placing his palm fully against Shinji's cheek, "Even the ones that don't appear to be."

**Author's Note:**

> InfinityIllusion and I exchanged prompts for a 12 Days of Christmas fic exchange! They very diligently posted a fic a day for twelve days, and I, uh... clearly didn't do that.
> 
> I was going to do a variety of fandoms, but I feel compelled to get out my feelings because the final Eva movie was postponed again, so they might all end up being Eva fics. We'll see!
> 
> \--
> 
> Comments, kudos, and bookmarks really mean the world to me. If you'd like to see more in this style, or an update on this story, please let me know. It's what keeps me writing. :)


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